Christian Wilberg, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetChristian Wilberg
German painter
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Havelberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
About Christian Wilberg
- Christian Wilberg (20 November 1839 in Havelberg – 3 June 1882 in Paris) was a German painter.Wilberg was born in 1839 in Havelberg in the Margraviate of Brandenburg (nowadays Saxony-Anhalt) where he lived until 1861.
- He was originally a house painter before moving to Berlin where he studied painting at Eduard Pape's atelier.
- After 18 months, Pape suggested to Wilberg that he should study further with Paul Gropius, where he acquired a good knowledge of perspective and architecture.
- After finishing his apprenticeship under Oswald Achenbach's supervision in Düsseldorf in 1870, Wilberg traveled through Northern Germany and spent two years in Venice.
- Even after returning to Berlin, Wilberg continued visiting Italy as his favourite field of art was Italian architecture.
- Amongst his most important works in this field are his paintings of St Mark's Basilica in Venice and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo.In 1880, Wilberg painted a panorama of the Gulf of Naples for the Berlin Fishery exhibition, which gained him recognition amongst insiders.
- In the year before he went on a trip to Pergamon with the director of the Berlin Collection of Classical Antiquities.
- It was here that Wilberg made a series of sketches of the Acropolis which he later utilised for paintings.
- He acquired a large knowledge in ancient architecture and used this to conceive reconstructions of Roman buildings – one of which was later hung in Berlin's famous Café Bauer.Wilberg's last major project was a great panorama of the Baths of Caracalla which he created for the Berlin Hygiene exhibition of 1882.
- This last major work was incinerated when the exhibition hall caught fire and Wilberg only had time to save a few paintings and drawings.
- After the fire, Wilberg travelled to France in the company of Werner Ludwig Pietsch in order to paint in Sedan; on his way there, he got ill while visiting Paris.
- He died there shortly afterwards.
- In October and November 1882 a special exhibition including more than 677 of Wilberg's works was held in Berlin's National Gallery.
- Some of the paintings from this exhibition, Villa Mondagrone and a number of oil sketches in watercolour and pencil drawings, were transferred to the National Gallery's ownership.
- In 1883, the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden was presented with Memento Mori, one of Wilberg's motifs of the Sabini Mountains in Italy.
Read more at Wikipedia